The Noun ; Gender

You know that living beings are of either the male or the female sex. Now compare the words in the following pairs:

Boy – Girl

Lion – Lioness

Hero – Heroine

Cock-sparrow – Hen-sparrow

What do you notice?

The first word of each pair is the name of a male sex.

The second word of each pair is the name of a female sex.

A noun that denotes a male sex is said to be of the Masculine Gender.

A noun that denotes a female sex is said to be of the Feminine Gender.

A noun that denotes either a male or a female is said to be of the Common Gender; as

Parent, child, friend, pupil, servant, thief, relation, enemy, cousin, person, orphan, student, baby, monarch, neighbor, infant.

A noun that denotes a thing that is neither male nor female (i.e. thing without life) is said to be of the Neuter Gender;as,

Book, pen, room, tree.

It will be thus seen that in Modern English, the Gender of a noun is entirely a matter of sex or the absence of sex. It has nothing to do with the form of a noun, which determines it gender in many other languages, e.g. in Urdu where bagiche is masculine and lakri is feminine.

The Noun : Kinds of Nouns

A Noun is a word used as the name of a person, place, thing, animal, idea or feeling.

Note – The word thing is used to mean anything that we can think of.

Look at the following sentence:

Ashoka was a wise king.

The noun Ashoka refers to a particular king, but the noun king might be applied to any other king as well as to Ashoka. We call Ashoka a Proper Noun, and king a Common Noun.

Similarly:

Sita is a proper noun, while girl is a common noun.

Hari is a proper noun, while boy is a common noun.

Kolkata is a proper noun, while city is a common noun.

India is a proper noun, while country is a common noun.

The word girl is a common noun, because it is a name common to all girls, while Sita is a proper noun because it is the name of a particular girl.

Def. – A Common Noun is a name given in common to every person or thing of the same class or kind. (Common here means shared by all)

Def. – A Proper Noun is the name of some particular person or place.

(Proper means one’s own. Hence a Proper Name is a person’s own name).

Note 1 – Proper Nouns are always written with a capital letter at the beginning.

Note 2 – Proper Nouns are sometimes used as Common Nouns; as

1.      He was the Lukman (= the wisest man) of his age.

2.      Kalidas is often called the Shakespeare (= the greatest dramatist) of India.

Common nouns include what are called Collective Nouns and Abstract Nouns.

A Collective Noun is the name of a number (or collection) of persons or things taken together and spoken of as one whole; as,

Crowd, mob, team, flock, herd, army, fleet, jury, family, nation, parliament, committee.

A fleet - a collection of ships or vessels.

An army – a collection of soldiers.

A crowd – a collection of people.

The police dispersed the crowd.

The French army was defeated at Waterloo.

The jury found the prisoner guilty.

A herd of cattle is passing.

An Abstract Noun is usually the name of a quality, action or state considered apart from the object to which it belongs; as,

Quality – Goodness, kindness, whiteness, darkness, hardness, brightness, honesty, wisdom, bravery.

Action – Laughter, boyhood, youth, slavery, sleep, sickness, death, poverty.

The names of the Arts and Sciences (e.g. grammar, music, chemistry etc.) are also Abstract Nouns.

We can speak of a brave soldier, a strong man, a beautiful flower. But we can also think of these qualities apart from any particular person or thing, and speak of bravery, strength, beauty by themselves. So also we can speak of what persons do or feel apart from the persons themselves, and give it a name. The word abstract means drawn off.

Abstract Nouns are formed –

1.      From Adjectives; as,

Kindness from kind; honesty from honest

2.      From Verbs; as.

Obedience from obey; growth from grow.

3.      From Common Nouns; as,

Childhood from child; slavery from slave.

Another classification of nouns is whether they are “countable” or “uncountable”.

Countable nouns are names of objects, people etc. that we can count, e.g. book, pen, apple, boy, sister, doctor, horse.

Uncountable Nouns are the names of things which we cannot count, e.g. milk, oil, sugar, gold, honesty. They mainly denote substances and abstract things.

Countable nouns have plural forms while uncountable nouns do not. For example, we say “books” but we cannot say “milks”.

  

Parts of Speech

Words are divided into different kinds or classes, called Parts of Speech, according to their use; that is, according to the work they do in a sentence. The parts of speech are eight in number:

1.      Noun

A noun is a word used as the name of a person, place, thing, animal, idea or feeling; as,

Akbar was a great King.

Kolkata is on the Hooghly.

The rose smells sweet.

The sun shines bright.

His courage won him honour.

Note – The word thing includes (i) all objects that we can see, hear, taste, touch or smell; and (ii) something that we can think of, but cannot perceive by senses.

2.      An Adjective is a word used to add something to the meaning of a noun; as,

He is a brave boy.

There are twenty boys in this class.

3.      A Pronoun is a word used instead of a noun; as,

John is absent, because he is ill.

The books are where you left them.

4.      A Verb is a word used to express an action or state; as

The girl wrote a letter to her cousin.

Kolkata is a big city.

Iron and copper are useful metals.

5.      An Adverb is a word used to add something to the meaning of a verb, an adjective or another adverb; as,

He worked the sum quickly.

This flower is very beautiful.

She pronounced the word quite correctly.

6.      A Preposition is a word used with a noun or a pronoun to show how the person or thing denoted by the noun or pronoun stands in relation to something else; as,

There is a cow in the garden.

The girl is fond of music.

A fair little girl sat under a tree.

7.      A Conjunction is a word used to join words or sentences; as,

Rama and Hari are cousins.
Two and two make four.

I ran fast, but missed the train.

8.      An Interjection is a word which expresses some sudden feeling; as,

Hurrah! We have won the game.

Alas! She is dead.

The Phrase and the Clause

Examine the group of words “in a corner”. It makes sense, but not complete sense. Such a group of words, which makes sense but not complete sense, is called a Phrase.

In the following sentences, the groups of words in italics are Phrases;

The sun rises in the east.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

There came a giant to my door.

It was a sunset of great beauty.

The tops of the mountains were covered with snow.

Examine the groups of words in italics in the following sentences:

He has a chain of gold.

He has a chain which is made of gold.

We recognize the first group of words as a Phrase.

The second group of words, unlike the Phrase of gold, contains a Subject (which) and a Predicate (is made of gold).

Such a group of words which forms part of a sentence and contains a Subject and a Predicate is called a Clause.

In the following sentences, the groups of words in italics are Clauses:

People who pay their debts are trusted.

We cannot start while it is raining.

I think that you have made a mistake.

Subject and Predicate

When we make a sentence -  

1.      We name some person or thing; and

2.      Say something about that person or thing

In other words, we must have a subject to speak about and we must say or predicate something about that subject.

Hence every sentence has two parts –

1.      The part which names the person or thing we are speaking about. This is called the Subject of the sentence.

2.      The part which tells something about the Subject.

      This is called the Predicate of the sentence.

The Subject of a sentence usually comes first, but occasionally, it is put after the Predicate; as

Here comes the bus.

Sweet are the uses of adversity.

In Imperative sentences, the subject is left out; as

Sit down. (Here the Subject You is understood).

Thank him. (Here too the Subject You is understood).

The Sentence

When we speak or write, we use words. We generally use these words in groups; as, He is playing cricket.

A group of words like this, which makes complete sense, is called a Sentence.

Kinds of Sentences:

Sentences are of four kinds:

1.      Those which make statements or assertions; as,

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

2.      Those which ask questions; as

Where do you live?

3.      Those which express commands, requests or entreaties; as

Be quiet.

Have mercy upon us.

4.      Those which express strong feelings; as

How cold the night is!

What a shame!

A sentence that makes a statement or assertion is called a Declarative or Assertive sentence.

A sentence that asks a question is called an Interrogative sentence.

A sentence that expresses a command or an entreaty is called an Imperative sentence.

A sentence that expresses strong feeling is called an Exclamatory sentence.